India is working to correct a skills shortage that needs to be met if it is to realise prime minister Narendra Modi’s “Make In India” vision.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Modi announced two upskilling packages last month, collectively worth $US 3.3 billion, to improve the skills of 15 million people by 2020.
There is a backlog of work supplying multinationals in aerospace, defence and other areas. Companies, as part of Indian industry policy, must have India contribute components for every deal made in the country, according to the article.
At the same time, there is a shortage of skilled workers to meet the demand, with 90,000 aerospace and defence workers needed by 2020. There are also concerns about the quality of engineering colleges. According to an Aspiring Minds study released earlier this year and involving 150,000 engineering students at 650 colleges, over 80 per cent of engineers are “unemployable”.
“India doesn’t have a labor shortage—it has a skilled labor shortage,” said Tom Captain, of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu told The Wall Street Journal.
“India has to move up the value chain. Otherwise, you will not get even the assembly work,” Sukaran Singh of Tata Advanced said.
The Make In India plan was announced in September 2014. Modi’s government wants to recreate China’s manufacturing export boom and to increase manufacturing’s share from 17 per cent to 25 per cent of Indian GDP by 2025.